JAMES MEIGS: Why Fauci Became a Bobblehead. 

Fauci seems to have concluded that he is synonymous with science itself. “It’s easy to criticize,” he complained on Face the Nation last year, “but they’re really criticizing science because I represent science.” Note to reader: No one “represents” science. Science is a radically transparent system of inquiry, debate, and a willingness to challenge received wisdom. As soon as any individual claims the authority to speak for science as a whole, that person is doing the opposite of science.

Today, there is reason to believe that Covid-19, as devastating as it was, did less damage to our society than our ham-fisted overreaction to the disease. Fauci and his public health colleagues were enthusiastic cheerleaders for the policies that inflicted this damage. The social, medical, and economic aftershocks will reverberate for decades to come. It’s tempting to lay the blame here all on Fauci, to assume that his personal moral shortcomings created this mess. I don’t think that’s right. By all accounts, Fauci is a well-meaning official who really believes he’s doing what’s best for the country. But so what? Well-intentioned people can do just as much damage as malevolent ones, sometimes more.

No. The real problem here is power. Fauci simply has had far too much of it for far too long. When the Good Saint Anthony retires in a few months, this administration (or, more likely, one that follows) would be smart to ensure that the next NIAID director operates on a much shorter leash. We would all do well to recognize that appointing “czars” in times of crisis always backfires in the end. And it’s fundamentally un-American.

Flashback: Fauci and other health ‘experts’ are messing up monkeypox just as they did COVID, Ebola and AIDS.